Broadband or dial-up?

Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0807:29 PM

This is a question I got reading the Download/Hard copy discussion.It's just a little poll but I need many responses to get a clear picture! So, do you have a broadband or a dial-up connection and do you have data limits for downloading?

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0807:37 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0807:43 PM

I wouldnt like to try downloading a 1 gigabyte game or bigger on 56k dial up lol. Broadband is the way to go, actually im suprised 56k dial up is even sold to the public considering broadband can be as cheap as dialup used to be.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0808:55 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0809:30 PM

So far the broadband users are the majority, that's exactly what I suspected when I started this topic, not because I think there are a lot more broadband users but the people who have a broadband connection are more active! I wish all the dial-up members react also, because I want to get a clear picture on this subject.

Mad, don't worry! This is a topic that I put here just to cure my curiosity and not for any commercial reason! Sometimes I post in topics only to see what the reactions will be.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0809:37 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0809:55 PM

Our only choice for anything faster than dialup (out here in the sticks)is Satellite internet. Not exactly Broadband, but faster than dialup.And right now the dish is filling up with snow, so I might not even be able to send this till later. :eeksnoman:

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0809:56 PM

Broadband on the desktop, dial-up on the laptop, but the laptop also has a WiFi card so it can be used in one of those free WiFi places that abound in the US (Barnes & Noble, Panera Bread, etc.) and this is convenient both on the road and for occasional large downloads for speed.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0810:02 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/29/0810:20 PM

Originally Posted By: Bernard

Just wish we get some snow here! Bernard

You can have ours. It's snowing now in the Chicago area, where the temperature was 48F at 4:00 PM and is now (10:20 PM) down to 4F and is headed to -4F overnight. We're known as the climatic armpit of the world. :shiver:

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0801:05 AM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0803:54 AM

I had dialup till recently when HighSpeed Internet became available at a reasonable price. I like it so much better because now when I get emails with attachments - especially pictures it downloads them fast. With dialup it could take as long as half an hour to receive one email with pictures.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0804:33 AM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0805:54 AM

SkeeterUK - interesting comment about "why is dial-up still sold to the public." I live 30 miles west of Washington D.C. in one of the richest Countys in the US (except for me) on a dirt road with no cable and no broadband internet available by wire. I get my "cable" by satellite (DirecTV) and my broadband from a line-of-sight tower. So in this huge country of ours, sometimes dial-up is the only available way. I must say, though, I've had my broadband for a year or less and, my gosh, I love it. Some day (sooner than we think) it will be universal and "there" just like the phone line. (When we can hook up our computer to our cellphone then wireless broadband will be universal.)

BeaSong - how is your satellite internet working? I considered Huges Net (now Skynet?) but my son pointed me to a forum of people who could only talk about how much they hated it.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0810:40 AM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0810:58 AM

Broadband (3mb/s DSL) which we use with our laptops (wifi). It's pretty stable and our wireless router is pretty good. Have not had any issues downloading games from developers or online stores (Adventure Game Shop, Kheops and Big Fish Games) as long as it's not raining hard outside. The phone lines in this area need repairing!

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0812:24 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0812:30 PM

Here in Denmark where I live the power companies (those who provide the electricity) have a plan to offer broadband with much higher download speed than normal. We're talking 10-30 - to maybe 100 MB download speed.

There are, in fact, some places where you already can get this.However, I doubt if the power companies have been succesfull at this point?

I think that providing high power downloads via the electric cables is the way to go. Then broadban connections will be as availabe and normal as electricity is today - at least in some places of the world.

Oh, and I forgot to add that my broadband is cable of sorts, don't have a download cap and that(normally) game downloads etc. happens with a speed between 10-30 MB/minute (or sec?)

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0812:55 PM

Karsten, I've heard rumours about Internet by the power grid, even participated in a field experiment but as far as I know, it has not been a success anywhere. Reading the posts I realized I didn't mention my own connection. I have cable broadband >20MB, there's a price tag to it but I reduce it by providing a small WiFi network for my neighbours. They pay a a few Euro's to me every month so below the line my costs aren't too high!

Keep on posting people, I need at least between 100 and 200 reactions to get a good view.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0803:07 PM

I think there's some small scale experimentation with this in two or three (big) towns here in Denmark. I depends whether or not they can get fiberlines in the ground I think.

The thing is this, though:

Today we don't think about how we get our power (electricity) in our houses. The meaning behind the power grid being used for the internet really is the same. You just plug in your computer - and then the power for it as well as the internet connections some from the same place.

The bad thing is that when there's a power shortage --- your computer won't work - at all.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0803:13 PM

We had dial up for years and was hating it more and more. So we got a deal from AT & T last year and got broadband, and loved it cause it wasn't that much more and it meant that we could talk on the phone and use the internet at the same time without an extra line. Well, U-Verse came out here ( still AT & T), and they gave us a deal in December to upgrade to it which includes the tv and wireless. It was cheaper to change to U-Verse and have more channels, more tv's and wireless than stay with our cable and use the regular AT & T broadband, go figure (?). I think U-Verse is broadband, maybe someone can correct me. I know it isn't dial-up! I am totally and completely spoiled with the wireless and the broadband, and am still amazed with how much we can do compared to just 10 years or more ago!

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0803:26 PM

It's been ADSL broadband with me for about four years now. About 2 years ago we got a free upgrade to 2MB (everyone on the island in range of the exchanges got the upgrade), and now they're talking about a similar upgrade to 8MB by the end of this year.

However, if you want real speed, you need to go to Japan and Taiwan where broadband can be as much as 100MB.

Regarding power line networks, I know that they can definitely work in a domestic situation - I installed one last weekend, though my blog has more details of the Netgear XE103 product recall that I'm now going through. (see my sig)

Finally, for those people with 'broadband but not stable enough for large downloads', you might like to investigate P2P networks like bittorrent (eg. uTorrent, or Azureus). Please note, I'm not advocating piracy. You will find that some of the larger downloads (OpenOffice.org and Ubuntu linux distributions, for example) can be obtained (completely legally) via bittorrent. These systems are designed to download even the largest of files in many, many chunks, and to be completely resilient in the face of an unreliable connection.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/30/0803:31 PM

have dsl now..finally-find it a lot better than dial-up i used to have but this dsl is not the 'fast' dsl, which i think is like the bb you get from most tv cable companies. In 2009 i'm going to get THAT!

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/31/0811:36 AM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/31/0802:55 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 01/31/0803:20 PM

Live in a small town and have dial-up at 31.2kbps. Largest download I can do is about 80Mb and can take up to 6+ hours. The one little phone company in town offers a high speed/router (with a no return option and can never be used elsewhere if one decided to move), starting at 64kbps.Phone/internet company has no competition and has never had any competitors.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/02/0803:10 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/02/0808:39 PM

Howard the Doc , Sorry I'm so late getting back to your question. We've been without power (because of the snow) which means the modem that connects to the satellite doesn't work. And, I've also been out of town. We've been trying to get my Mom's DirecWay dish and modem worked on for a month now and it is serviced by Hughes net. I'm shopping for something better. I'm to the point of thinking that ANYTHING is better! Grrrrrr.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/05/0807:06 PM

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/05/0811:12 PM

I have cable broadband with a 12Gb limit per month which we never get anywhere using up, but previous 2Gb far too little.Seems to take about an hour or so to download a game demo.

Broadband is a fair bit more expensive than dial-up here, and I've heard that our 'fast' broadband is a lot slower than the rest of the world, possibly due to one company holding the reins so to speak. Have just bought a laptop and have dial-up on that, had forgotten how slow it is!

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/06/0809:06 AM

Dial-up! I have no choice. I live in the boonies. We aren't offered DSL, or cable. Satellite has around a $700.00 installation fee and is around $80.00 a month. When I asked the cable company when they'd have internet services out here they laughed.

Re: Broadband or dial-up? - 02/13/0802:49 PM

ADSL through the phone line, plus wi-fi from the router for the laptop. Here in France, most everyone has broadband. Wouldn't go back to dial-up for anything. Broadband was one of our criteria when buying a house here.